Thomas A. Edison Quotes & Sayings

Even though I am nearly deaf, I seem to be gifted with a kind of inner hearing which enables me to detect sounds and noises which the ordinary person does not hear. — Thomas A. Edison

An average American loves his family. If he has any love left over for some other person, he generally selects Mark Twain. — Thomas A. Edison

I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed 3,000 different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet only in two cases did my experiments prove the truth of my theory. My chief difficulty was in constructing the carbon filament ... Every quarter of the globe was ransacked by my agents, and all sorts of the queerest materials used, until finally the shred of bamboo, now utilized by us, was settled upon. — Thomas A. Edison

I have better use for my brain than to poison it with alcohol. To put alcohol in the human brain is like putting sand in the bearings of an engine. — Thomas A. Edison

No, I haven't failed thousands of times. On the contrary, I have successfully eliminated thousands of ideas that do not work! — Thomas A. Edison

The successful person makes a habit of doing what the failing person doesn't like to do. — Thomas A. Edison

Absorb ideas from every source. — Thomas A. Edison

I am long on ideas, but short on time. I expect to live to be only about a hundred. — Thomas A. Edison

Show me a completely contented person and I'll show you a failure. — Thomas A. Edison

There is a better way to do it - Find it! — Thomas A. Edison

I consider Paine our greatest political thinker. As we have not advanced, and perhaps never shall advance, beyond the Declaration and Constitution, so Paine has had no successors who extended his principles. — Thomas A. Edison

We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles. — Thomas A. Edison

I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward. — Thomas A. Edison

A reporter called on Edison to interview him about a substitute for lead in the manufacture of storage batteries that the scientist was seeking. Edison informed the man that he had made 20,000 experiments but none had worked. "Aren't you discouraged by all this waste of effort?" the reporter asked. Edison: "Waste! There's nothing wasted. I have discovered 20,000 things that won't work." — Thomas A. Edison

The biggest failure of man is that he gives up before he realizes how close he was to success. — Thomas A. Edison

Be brave as your fathers before you. Have faith and go forward. — Thomas A. Edison

Through all the years of experimenting and research, I never once made a discovery. I start where the last man left off. All my work was deductive, and the results I achieved were those of invention pure and simple. — Thomas A. Edison

The perils of overwork are slight compared with the dangers of inactivity. — Thomas A. Edison

Fooling around with alternating currents is just a waste of time. Nobody will use it, ever. It's too dangerous ... it could kill a man as quick as a bolt of lightning. Direct current is safe. — Thomas A. Edison

I am not overly impressed by the great names and reputations of those who might be trying to beat me to an invention. It's their 'ideas' that appeal to me. I am quite correctly described as 'more of a sponge than an inventor — Thomas A. Edison

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. — Thomas A. Edison

One might think that the money value of an invention constitutes its reward to the man who loves his work. But ... I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success. — Thomas A. Edison

The roots of tobacco plants must go clear through to hell. Satan's principal agent Dyspepsia must have charge of this branch of the vegetable kingdom. — Thomas A. Edison

Books will soon be obsolete in the schools ... Our school system will be completely changed in the next ten years. — Thomas A. Edison

Nature made us ... nature did it all ... not the gods of the religions. — Thomas A. Edison

There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine or force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever. — Thomas A. Edison

I think work is the world's greatest fun. — Thomas A. Edison

Before you reject an idea, find at least five good things about it. — Thomas A. Edison

There is much more opportunity than there are people to see it. — Thomas A. Edison

Ideas without execution are hallucinations. — Thomas A. Edison

If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%. Whereas the currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution pays nobody but those who contribute in some useful way. It is absurd to say our Country can issue bonds and cannot issue currency. Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the usurer and the other helps the People. — Thomas A. Edison

I do not believe in the God of the theologians; but that there is a Supreme Intelligence I do not doubt. — Thomas A. Edison

A genius is a talented person who does his homework. — Thomas A. Edison

We shall have no better conditions in the future if we are satisfied with all those which we have at present. — Thomas A. Edison

Sleep is like a drug. Take too much at a time and it makes you dopey. You lose time and opportunities. — Thomas A. Edison

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless. — Thomas A. Edison

Smoking too much makes me nervous. Must lasso my natural tendency to acquire such habits. Holding heavy cigar constantly in my mouth has deformed my upper lip, it has a sort of Havana curl. — Thomas A. Edison

Most of the exercise I get is from standing and walking around laboratory tables all day. I derive more benefit and entertainment from this than some of my friends and competitors get from playing games like golf. — Thomas A. Edison

Any large extension of the Government into business affairs - no matter what the pretense and no matter how the the extension is labeled - will be bound to promote waste and put a curb on our prosperity and progress. — Thomas A. Edison

There cannot be overproduction of anything which men and women want. And their wants are unlimited, except by the size of their stomachs. — Thomas A. Edison

Discontent is the first necessity of progress. — Thomas A. Edison

It's very beautiful over there. — Thomas A. Edison

An idea is something that won't work unless you do. — Thomas A. Edison

Not only will atomic power be released, but someday we will harness the rise and fall of the tides and imprison the rays of the sun. — Thomas A. Edison

There is great value in disaster. All our mistakes are burned up. Thank God we can start a new. — Thomas A. Edison

My mother was the making of me. She was so true and so sure of me, I felt that I had someone to live for - someone I must not disappoint. The memory of my mother will always be a blessing to me. — Thomas A. Edison

As Danand Ian over at the Lifestyle Business Podcast say: Rush to failure. — Thomas A. Edison

I have never failed, I've only shown the way I did it before doesn't work. — Thomas A. Edison

A good intention, with a bad approach, often leads to a poor result. — Thomas A. Edison

I've realized that most of my best ideas have followed a good night's sleep. — Thomas A. Edison

It has been just so in all my inventions. The first step is an intuition-and comes with a burst, then difficulties arise. This thing that gives out and then that-"Bugs"as such little faults and difficulties are called show themselves and months of anxious watching, study and labor are requisite before commercial success-or failure-is certainly reached. — Thomas A. Edison

Incurably religious, that is the best way to describe the mental condition of so many people. — Thomas A. Edison

I have not failed 10,000 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 10,000 ways will not work, — Thomas A. Edison

I have determined that there is no market for talking pictures — Thomas A. Edison

Nineteen hundred and three will bring great advances in surgery, in the study of bacteria, in the knowledge of the cause and prevention of disease. Medicine is played out. Every new discovery of bacteria shows us all the more convincingly that we have been wrong and that the million tons of stuff we have taken was all useless. — Thomas A. Edison

I haven't failed,I have just found 10,000 ways that won't work. — Thomas A. Edison

To me, the idea and expectation that the day is slowly and surely coming when we will be able to honestly say we are our brother's keeper and not his oppressor is very beautiful . — Thomas A. Edison

I have been at work for some time building an apparatus to see if it is possible for personalities which have left this earth to communicate with us. — Thomas A. Edison

The body is a community made up of its innumerable cells or inhabitants. — Thomas A. Edison

Genius is not inspired. Inspiration is perspiration. — Thomas A. Edison

If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. — Thomas A. Edison

Nearly every person who develops an idea works at it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged. — Thomas A. Edison

Radio is just a fashion contrivance that will soon die out. It is obvious that there never will be invented a proper receiver! — Thomas A. Edison

I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work. — Thomas A. Edison

If I had not had so much ambition and not tried to do so many things, I probably would have been happier, but less useful. — Thomas A. Edison

There are no rules here
we're trying to accomplish something. — Thomas A. Edison

My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it. — Thomas A. Edison

Accomplishing something provides the only real satisfaction in life. — Thomas A. Edison

Inspiration can be found in a pile of junk. Sometimes, you can put it together with a good imagination and invent something. — Thomas A. Edison

From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce. — Thomas A. Edison

Somewhere between the ages of eleven and fifteen, the average child begins to suffer from an atrophy, the paralysis of curiosity and the suspension of the power to observe. The trouble, I should judge, to lie with the schools. — Thomas A. Edison

So far as the religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake ... Religion is all bunk. — Thomas A. Edison

Nobody knows whether our personalities pass on to another existence or sphere, but if we can evolve an instrument so delicate to be manipulated by our personality as it survives in the next life such an instrument ought to record something ... — Thomas A. Edison

There is no limit to which a man will not go to avoid thinking. — Thomas A. Edison

Fools call wise men fools. A wise man never calls any man a fool. — Thomas A. Edison

X-rays ... I am afraid of them. I stopped experimenting with them two years ago, when I came near to losing my eyesight and Dally, my assistant practically lost the use of both of his arms. — Thomas A. Edison

Never go to sleep
without a request to your subconscious. — Thomas A. Edison

It is remarkable to what lengths people will go to avoid thought. — Thomas A. Edison

The dove is my emblem. — Thomas A. Edison

There is time for everything. — Thomas A. Edison

It is very beautiful over there. (last words) — Thomas A. Edison

Religion is all bunk. — Thomas A. Edison

I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us- everything that exists - proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision. — Thomas A. Edison

I never failed once. It just happened to be a 2000-step process. — Thomas A. Edison

Genius? Nothing! Sticking to it is the genius! ...
I've failed my way to success. — Thomas A. Edison

As a cure for worrying, work is far better than whiskey. I always found that, if I began to worry, the best thing I could do was focus upon doing something useful and then work very hard at it. Soon, I would forget what was troubling me. — Thomas A. Edison

Work while others are wishing. — Thomas A. Edison

It is a terrible situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt and submit to ruinous interest charges, at the hands of men, who control the fictitious value of gold. Interest is the invention of Satan. — Thomas A. Edison

When I have fully decided that a result is worth getting I go ahead of it and make trial after trial until it comes. — Thomas A. Edison

Education isn't play
and it can't be made to look like play. It is hard, hard work. But it can be made interesting work. — Thomas A. Edison

There seems to be no limit to which some men will go to avoid the labor of thinking. Thinking is hard work. — Thomas A. Edison

To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. — Thomas A. Edison

A good idea is never lost. Even though its originator or possessor may die, it will someday be reborn in the mind of another ... — Thomas A. Edison

Success is the product of the severest kind of mental and physical application, — Thomas A. Edison

I am a vegetarian as well as a passionate anti-alcoholic, because I can thus make better use of my brain. — Thomas A. Edison

We are striking it big in the electric light, better than my vivid imagination first conceived. Where this thing is going to stop Lord only knows. — Thomas A. Edison

Your worth consists in what you are and not in what you have. — Thomas A. Edison

We often miss opportunity because it's dressed in overalls and looks like work — Thomas A. Edison

It is very different to make a practical system and to introduce it. A few experiments in the laboratory would prove the practicability of system long before it could be brought into general use. You can take a pipe and put a little coal in it, close it up, heat it and light the gas that comes out of the stem, but that is not introducing gas lighting. I'll bet that if it were discovered to-morrow in New York that gas could be made out of coal it would be at least five years before the system would be in general use. — Thomas A. Edison

I am both pleased but astonished by the fact that mankind has not yet begun to use all the means and devices that are available for destruction. I hope that such weapons are never manufactured in quantity. — Thomas A. Edison